Qualcomm quad-core developer tablet ships for $1,300

Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon S4 quad-core found its way into a developer tablet and judging by the first benchmarks, the competition has quite a problem on its hands.

The APQ8064 features four Krait cores clocked at 1.5GHz and Adreno 320 graphics. Even dual-core Krait parts can hold their own against quad-core parts from Nvidia and Samsung, so the quad core is in a league of its own. In addition, graphics core is second only to some Imagination Technologies solutions, namely the SGX 543MP4 in the Apple A5X.

Anand put the tablet through its paces and compared it to existing ARM gear on the market. In GLBench the tablet failed to outpace Apple’s iPad 3, but it ended up between 50 and 100 percent faster than Tegra 3 tablets, depending on the test. In SunSpider the new Qualcomm chip reigned supreme, but it had to take second spot in Browsermark.

All in all, the new Qualcomm SoC sets the bar quite and it could find its way to Windows RT tablets in a few months. Although it sounds like overkill, someone will probably try sticking it in a phone sooner or later.